Gandy's Beach Shoreline Protection

Location: New Jersey

Project type: Resilience

Funding awarded: $880,000

Project Summary

The Service will construct 4,000 feet of living shoreline and breakwater to restore 337 acres of salt marsh and adjacent uplands. This project will substantially improve the ability of the site to withstand storm surges and coastal erosion.

Gandy's Beach is currently a Nature Conservancy Preserve along an area of undeveloped shoreline on the Delaware Bay that provides valuable habitat for a variety of fish and wildlife. Its shore has been increasingly vulnerable to coastal erosion and was considerably impacted by storm surge from Hurricane Sandy. This project will build a shell-based living shoreline one mile offshore that will act as a breakwater and protect about one mile of sandy beach shoreline and adjacent salt marsh. Once constructed, the breakwater is projected to reduce incoming wave energy by up to 40 percent.